Measuring Attentional Bias to Threat: Reliability of Dot Probe and Eye Movement Indices

Waechter, Stephanie; Nelson, Andrea L.; Wright, Caitlin; Hyatt, Ashley Elizabeth; Oakman, Jonathan M.

doi:10.1007/s10608-013-9588-2

Cited by 280 publications

(296 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…Recent studies have demonstrated convergent, incremental, known-group criterion, and predictive validity of the dynamic features of the temporal dynamics of AB, in multiple tasks (e.g., dot probe task, spatial cueing task) for spider phobia, addiction behavior (e.g., smoking rate), social anxiety, PTSD risk (prospectivelongitudinal prediction of PTSD symptom development), as well as PTSD symptom severity and trauma-related behavioral avoidance in highly traumatized refugees (e.g., Bardeen, Tull, Daniel, Evenden, & Stevens, in press;Davis et al, in press;Schäfer et al, in press;Yuval et al, in press;Zvielli et al, 2015; see also Iacoviello et al, 2014;Naim et al, 2015 for related work on attention bias variability in PTSD). These findings are furthermore noteworthy in light of recent studies demonstrating that the same conceptual and methodological problems observed for aggregated Bias Dynamics in Remitted Depression 7 7 mean estimates of covert attentional bias are evident for overt indices of AB (i.e., eye-tracking measurement; Amir et al, in press;Waechter, Nelson, Wright, Hyatt, & Oakman, 2014). Indeed, in anxious adults, Amir et al (in press) found that traditional aggregated mean covert and overt AB scores demonstrated (seemingly) no association and poor psychometrics; whereas the realtime, dynamic expressions of overt and covert attentional processes were significantly coupled from trial-to-trial, and voluntary inhibition of overt attention de-coupled their connection.…”

Section: Attentional Bias Temporal Dynamics In Remitted Depressionmentioning

confidence: 51%

Attentional bias temporal dynamics in remitted depression.

Zvielli¹,

Vrijsen

Koster

et al. 2016

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

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Theory implicates attentional bias (AB) or dysregulated attentional processing of emotional information in the recurrence of major depressive episodes. However, empirical study of AB among remitted depressed patients is limited in scope and has yielded mixed findings. Mixed findings may be accounted for by how the field has conceptualized and thereby studied AB. We propose that a novel temporal dynamic process perspective on AB may help disambiguate extant findings and elucidate the nature of AB in remitted depression. Thus, we reexamined Dot Probe data among remitted depressed patients (RMD; n ϭ 328) and nondepressed controls (NDC; n ϭ 82) that previously yielded null effects when AB was quantified by means of the traditional aggregated mean bias score (Vrijsen et al., 2014). We reanalyzed data using a novel computational approach that extracts a series of bias estimations from trial to trial (Zvielli, Bernstein, & Koster, 2015). Key features of these dynamic process signals revealed moderate to excellent reliability relative to the traditional aggregated mean bias scores. These features of AB dynamics-specifically temporal variability in AB including AB toward and away from emotional stimuli-were significantly elevated among RMDs relative to NDCs. Moreover, among RMDs, a greater number of past depressive episodes were associated with elevation in these features of AB dynamics. Effects were not accounted for by residual depressive symptoms or social anxiety symptoms. Findings indicate that dysregulation in attentional processing of emotional information reflected in AB dynamics may be key to depression vulnerability.

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Section: Attentional Bias Temporal Dynamics In Remitted Depressionmentioning

confidence: 51%

Attentional bias temporal dynamics in remitted depression.

Zvielli¹,

Vrijsen

Koster

et al. 2016

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

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“…In addition, some studies reported very poor reliability estimates of the dot-probe task [45,46] , which might explain the inconsistent findings in the literature. To improve the facial dot-probe task's sensitivity to detect subtle group differences in visual attention, a greater effort is needed to increase its reliability [47] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional Bias for Emotional Stimuli in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Meta-Analysis

Kaiser¹,

Jacob²,

Domes³

et al. 2016

Psychopathology

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Background: In borderline personality disorder (BPD), attentional bias (AB) to emotional stimuli may be a core component in disorder pathogenesis and maintenance. Sampling: 11 emotional Stroop task (EST) studies with 244 BPD patients, 255 nonpatients (NPs) and 95 clinical controls and 4 visual dot-probe task (VDPT) studies with 151 BPD patients or subjects with BPD features and 62 NPs were included. Methods: We conducted two separate meta-analyses for AB in BPD. One meta-analysis focused on the EST for generally negative and BPD-specific/personally relevant negative words. The other meta-analysis concentrated on the VDPT for negative and positive facial stimuli. Results: There is evidence for an AB towards generally negative emotional words compared to NPs (standardized mean difference, SMD = 0.311) and to other psychiatric disorders (SMD = 0.374) in the EST studies. Regarding BPD-specific/personally relevant negative words, BPD patients reveal an even stronger AB than NPs (SMD = 0.454). The VDPT studies indicate a tendency towards an AB to positive facial stimuli but not negative stimuli in BPD patients compared to NPs. Conclusions: The findings rather reflect an AB in BPD to generally negative and BPD-specific/personally relevant negative words rather than an AB in BPD towards facial stimuli, and/or a biased allocation of covert attentional resources to negative emotional stimuli in BPD and not a bias in focus of visual attention. Further research regarding the role of childhood traumatization and comorbid anxiety disorders may improve the understanding of these underlying processes.

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“…It is suggested that the low reliability might, at least in part, be explained by the high variability in response times between individuals (Waechter et al, 2014). Splitting groups of participants in low and high anxious groups does not result in higher reliability scores (Kappenman et al, 2014;Waechter et al, 2014;Waechter & Stolz, 2015).…”

Section: Reliabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies indeed indicated that individual bias scores are not very stable over time (Brown et al, 2014;Cooper et al, 2011;Enock, Hofmann, & McNally, 2014;Kappenman, Farrens, Luck, & Proudfit, 2014;Schmukle, 2005;Staugaard, 2009;van Bockstaele et al, 2011;Waechter, Nelson, Wright, Hyatt, & Oakman, 2014;Waechter & Stolz, 2015), rendering the method not very suitable for investigating intra-individual differences. It is suggested that the low reliability might, at least in part, be explained by the high variability in response times between individuals (Waechter et al, 2014). Splitting groups of participants in low and high anxious groups does not result in higher reliability scores (Kappenman et al, 2014;Waechter et al, 2014;Waechter & Stolz, 2015).…”

Section: Reliabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The dot-probe task to measure emotional attention: A suitable measure in comparative studies?

2017

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For social animals, attending to and recognizing the emotional expressions of other individuals is of crucial importance for their survival and likely has a deep evolutionary origin. Gaining insight into how emotional expressions evolved as adaptations over the course of evolution can be achieved by making direct cross-species comparisons. To that extent, experimental paradigms that are suitable for investigating emotional processing across species need to be developed and evaluated. The emotional dot-probe task, which measures attention allocation toward emotional stimuli, has this potential. The task is implicit, and subjects need minimal training to perform the task successfully. Findings in nonhuman primates, although scarce, show that they, like humans, have an attentional bias toward emotional stimuli. However, the wide literature on human studies has shown that different factors can have important moderating effects on the results. Due to the large heterogeneity of this literature, these moderating effects often remain unnoticed. We here review this literature and show that subject characteristics and differences in experimental designs affect the results of the dot-probe task. We conclude with specific recommendations regarding these issues that are particularly relevant to take into consideration when applying this paradigm to study animals.

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Measuring Attentional Bias to Threat: Reliability of Dot Probe and Eye Movement Indices

Cited by 280 publications

References 76 publications

Attentional bias temporal dynamics in remitted depression.

Attentional bias temporal dynamics in remitted depression.

Attentional Bias for Emotional Stimuli in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Meta-Analysis

The dot-probe task to measure emotional attention: A suitable measure in comparative studies?

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